I love blogging. I love social media. I love connecting with people all over the planet in the immeasurable depths of the great swimming pool that is the Internet. Sometimes I think if I couldn't blog, couldn't tweet, couldn't facebook that I might suffer real, actual physical pain. I read the blogs of and follow people on Twitter who don't even know or care that I exist, and I love them. I laugh at their funny, I get mad when life or other people are shitty to them. I adore their children, their spouses, their home decor. I cry when they suffer and sometimes when I have spare change I send it to them because they need it or to their pet charity because they were promoting it. There are people out there on the internet that I have yet to meet in person that I consider to be among my best friends.
But I am honestly perplexed when I witness these *explosions* of animosity that erupt what seems like every few days. Yes, I've blogged about this before. There were a couple of big twitterfuffles taking place yesterday that highlighed the things that despite my deep devotion to the Internet cause me to hold some reservations about it.
I guess its the same thing that bothers me about some of our major political discussions extant these days, about the extremists in the Teabagger movement, about the guys who go around murdering doctors at abortion clinics, about people who shout racist epithets at our elected representatives.
I do not understand why some people lack the mechanism to be able to hear and acknowledge someone's differing opinion. Why is it necessary to send hate-filled epistles to people who blog or twitter something you disagree with? Why do people insist on escalating things to the point of no return?
I almost don't even want to bring up the White House panel on workplace flexibility this week, because my blog is small, relatively unknown, and I don't want the wrath of a million angry TweeterBloggers falling on my head. But I'll risk speaking out. If there's anything that I would implore of the Twitterverse and the Blogosphere is this: STOP LOSING YOUR FUCKING MINDS WHEN YOU DON'T AGREE WITH SOMEONE. Seriously!! STOP!
Par example:
So Heather Armstrong, the A-Lister of the A-List bloggers (and someone whose blog I read almost daily and enjoy immensely) was invited to participate in a panel on workplace flexibility at the White House earlier this week. Personally, I think Heather is a good selection, she represents a portion of the workplace currently not recognized in mainstream workforce discussions. She is an employer, she is a small business owner, she is a Brand. She has worked in the mainstream and outside of it; she has experienced what its like for a struggling family when one spouse's workplace won't be flexible during times of family crisis, she has dealt with trying afford health insurance when working in a non-traditional (i.e., without healthcare) field. Her experience and voice are entirely different than what someone else might bring to that panel and about as far away from my own experience as possible, but I didn't assume when I first heard of her selection that she was being selected to represent someone like me. I assumed she was being selected to represent someone like HER. And I assumed that there would also be other people selected who WOULD represent me. And I didn't give a shit either way about it, except for wondering, momentarily, why the Presiden't hadn't asked ME, PERSONALLY. Maybe he lost my phone number. Whatevs. So that was my take on it. I was delighted for Heather, And I'M NOT SAYING that my viewpoint is the correct one, or the "right" one. The one thing I am damn well certain of is that it was not the ONLY one.
As surely as rain is falling outside of my window at this moment, any mention of Dooce in any forum is guaranteed to generate reaction. 5% of the room will immediately say how much they hate her and everything she stands for, 10% will say they don't really like her much. Instantaneously 30% of the room will lose their collective minds and immediately start calling for public floggings of the 5% AND the 10%. The rest of us will stand there in complete confusion, scratching our heads and wondering why the walls are suddenly splattered with monkey feces.
A couple of folks whose blogs I read Tweeted their curiousity about the selection. I even responded to one mentioning that I felt Heather would represent well, and she responded to me quite agreeably. And that was it. No big deal.
Except that suddenly this blogger is being absolutely FLOODED with hate mail. Because she dared question. As are, I'm gathering from the blog posts, tweets and op-eds, everyone else who had an opinion on opposite sides of the water.
I love Dooce. It doesn't particularly bother me that some people don't. But it does bother me very fucking much, thank you, that the people who hate her and the people who hate the people who hate her have to act like a roomful of two-year-olds at a birthday party. Same goes for the rest of the so-called "controversial" bloggers out there.
What the hell is wrong with you people? Is the world not big enough for your differing opinions to exist AT THE SAME TIME? Really? Is it really too much to ask that a world full of presumptive grownups ACT like it? Is the art of respectful discourse truly dead? Or is this the way we've always truly been and I was just too naive to notice? I dinna ken it.
